Good morning! It is Saturday, 9:37am and I woke up before my alarm. Is this 33?! I am a consistently good sleeper, sometimes too good of a sleeper. As in, I can fairly easily sleep until noon, but if I do that, I wake up with a headache, body aches, neck pain, groggy, and usually feel like I need a nap later. When I woke up at 9:19am pretty wide awake, I got up, went to the bathroom and drank a large glass of water and so far so good. Seems like a great time to update all of ya’ll and my semi-boring life (all of ya’ll would be Dad and Doris, hello Dad and Doris! – thank you for reading!)
It has been incredibly hot here every single day. Oppressively hot, with blazing sun, unmoving air, and high temperatures even late at night. No end in sight either. We have been using the air conditioner way more than usual, even sleeping with it on, which is *gasp* a horrible thing to do! (Says all Spaniards).
We did escape to the pool last weekend and have grand plans to do so again today. As soon as I hit post here, I am going to make Luis get up so we can go to the gym and then go to the pool. We need to leave ample time for the time wasting that we tend to do on the weekends, so by the time we get there it may be around 5pm. All gucci though because it is plenty hot and sunny here at 5pm (sunset is 10pm!).
Last weekend, we went to Cantabria for a weekend with friends. Our good friends Nicki and Ivan are in Santander, Spain (where he is from) for 3 weeks and they told us to join them for a couple of nights. With this insane heat here in Madrid and the promise of cool air, cows, cliffs, and beautiful weather, they didn’t need to ask us twice.
We took a train early morning Saturday and arrived late on Monday and it was an excellent getaway.
I took very few pictures on the trip, but we packed a lot in. On the first day, we met our other friends, Jess and Fede, who were also in Cantabria for a quick coffee before they headed back to Madrid. I had this Banoffee pie that I very much enjoyed.
From there, we headed to the beach where we spent many hours lounging in the sand before our stomachs said it was time to try to find something to eat (easier said than done at 6pm in Spain when everyone is siestaing and kitchens are closed). We eventually found tortilla. Fueled by tortilla, we went back to the apartment, showered and had a little picoteo with snacks and drinks and then headed into Santander for more drinks and more picoteo. Cantabria is known for their cuisine and they have excellent Cantabrian anchovies. Is THIS 33? That I am telling you how excellent the anchovies are? Who am I?!
The next day, we went cliff walking, which was draw-droppingly beautiful. These photos don’t do it justice, but the water was torquise blue, the air was cool, and we passed cows and horses grazing along the cliffs.
Speaking of cliff walking and all types of walking and being 33, I splurged on these excellent 200€ Asics sneakers. Better than HOKA, better than Skechar’s, better than them all. VERY comfortable, bouncy, and makes me feel like I can fly. I wear them every day and love them.
After cliff walking, we stopped for some seriously disgusting tapas (oil-soaked croquetas in old stinky oil, mediocre potatoes with jarred bravas sauce, and a 28€ tab to top it off!) before heading back to the apartment and I promply passed out for a 3 hour nap. It worked out because Ivan and Nicki had a family reunion BBQ to go to so Luis and I stayed back, rested, then caught the bus into Santander and went back to the same restaurant for pinxos that we had been to the night prior. All of this (both photos) for less than 30€. I was flabbergasted.
We had 3 types of tortilla de patatas: plain, with mushrooms, and with tuna and mayo. The pinxos were: pisto with egg (like ratatouille) and was the star of the night, braised rabo de toro (beef tail) and was very good, cantabrian anchovies with tomato, and that plate of excellent olives.
We watched the sunset nearby and then walked along the water.
This picture makes me ask myself why boys are always blessed with beautiful eyelashes? Also, yes it was humid – the humidity barometer on my head is saying so.
Around midnight we headed home to meet up with Nicki and Ivan and stayed up until after 1am talking before calling it a night. The next day we all woke up excited to head to this beautiful location for breakfast with jaw-dropping views of the cliffs. We left sunny, blue-skies Santander to drive 30 minutes to Suances, only to arrive to these views:
Womp womp. We had breakfast anyway and laughed at the VERY rude waiter (and I am not usually one to complain too much as I am pretty sensitive to that because of Mazál).
The rest of the day passed by in a blur. We got back to Madrid close to 1am, had a quick dinner and were off to bed. It was a fantastic trip!
In other news:
Construction on our newest baby has started! This is the first Mazál, which has been sitting as a storage unit for years. We are finally turning it into a new project. Naturally, we cleaned before construction started (like cleaning before the cleaning lady comes). It looked so good – nice and organized!
And within 24 hours, it is full of dust and dirt and complete hot mess. Remember, it gets worse before it gets better!
I met with the designer yesterday to choose paint colors and make some more decisions about lighting. I will try to keep the blog updated on progress, but knowing me, the next post will be in February of 2026.
Some pretty bagels from a recent catering:
One of the bagels of the month, which I love for how summery it looks:
Those tomatoes cost 11€ per kilo! But they are flavorful and sweet so…
We went to sushi last week and shared this massive plate:
And we celebrated the 4th of July at Mazál. Free cake for everyone! Happy 4th!
It is now 10:30 am – this post took almost AN HOUR to write! Time to go make french toast with the EXCELLENT challah that I brought home from Mazál (we tweaked the recipe and now they are incredible), go to the gym, and go read my depressing book by the pool. Love me a good summer Saturday.
